Every enemy in the game has a numeric value, and every value has an enemy. You can absorb enemies into the spinning + sign (addition), and then shoot the sum back at other enemies as a negative number (subtraction). You can absorb up to a set limit (it starts at 10), and shoot through as many enemies as the value totals. It's best to keep the totals balanced, though, as any leftover negative value will come back at you afterward.

I ran out of time, due to one false start and a few cases of real life taking over. But it's kinda complete. Although a little short.And don't mind the bits of graphics I took from other projects of mine to get this finished.

This indeed very original, and very fun - I don't think I've ever played a SHMUP quite like this. You nailed the educational aspect, without anything preachy or detracting from actual gameplay. Good job!

Haha, this is superb! Very clever twist on the educational shooter game. And as people have mentioned, the fox is pretty adorable. Is he on a flying book? Why are there flying fishes? What kind of crazy math world is this?

Haha, this is superb! Very clever twist on the educational shooter game. And as people have mentioned, the fox is pretty adorable. Is he on a flying book? Why are there flying fishes? What kind of crazy math world is this?

Yup, fox on a book. There's a sort of an explanation for it all, with a division by zero and physical representations of numbers mimicking life, or something, but I didn't get to the story aspect.

...And I just updated the game with music credits. I'm glad TEM let me use his song, as I kinda only just asked him.

I concur with all the above. This is super cool. The math is totally integral to the gameplay, but you still don't feel like you are learning, and the gameplay is solid shmup fun. It was the same kind of "think and shoot" feeling that Ikaruga had going on with the flipping mechanic, except there are more states to deal with in this one. This rocks Math Blasters so hard.

It's fun trying to get the biggest (smallest?) negative number you can. My best is -60.

I just tried this; got to about -128 before the thing finally killed me.

Also, I'm wondering if I should have given the player points for the enemies a negative value monster hits, or at least for grinding down the monster with the plus sign. Right now the only thing that earns points is shooting a negative at positive enemies, and anything to do with the negative monster is points missed.It might have at least made it so the value upgrade at 500 would be a little easier to get.

I can only get to about 300 anyways, but I think getting points from the negative monster is a good idea, and since you wouldn't get points from making the negivive, you would still only get half as many points.